


how we rolled up the carpet (so we could dance)

by adhoori



Category: Red White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Post-Canon, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, this is really just weapons grade fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-04 22:53:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21205400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adhoori/pseuds/adhoori
Summary: Henry shrugs off his suit jacket and tie, looking his usual annoyingly handsome self while Alex stifles a yawn in spite of the amount of caffeine in his system.“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” Henry says, looking all kinds of fond. Alex feels a little ridiculous in his tousled hair, glasses and the ratty NYU sweatshirt, but finds an answering warmth spreading through him anyway as he lets himself be kissed hello.“Hi, sweetheart,” he says, leaning back into the chair while Henry leans against the desk.





	how we rolled up the carpet (so we could dance)

**Author's Note:**

> hello! I finished the book a few days ago and couldn't get them out of my head and so here we are.
> 
> unbeta’d, all mistakes are mine. title is from scheherazade by richard siken.

Alex is on his third cup of coffee and finally making some headway on the paper he’s supposed to have outlined next week. Law school was definitely the right choice but even so, 2L has been kicking his ass. For the first time, he finds himself challenged, putting in more work than he’s had to before, although he’ll be the first to admit that he loves it. Lives for it, even. It’s like he’s finally at a place where his obscure historical facts and his love of debate merge into giving him some kind of upper hand when they cold-call on him, in class.

In some ways, 1L was harder. He had to learn to manage his anxiety and to channel the fifty directions his thoughts went in at any time, into focused ideas. But even then he knew how this was that perfect sweet spot of pressure under which he did his best work. And then there was Henry. Henry, who stayed up with him for finals, who sometimes dropped by in between classes with lunch and a disarming smile, who let Alex dig his freezing toes into his lap with a few choice words but then gave him a foot massage anyway while they watched _ Bake Off_.

Alex pushes the chair back and stretches, popping his spine before drinking the last of his now-cold coffee. He rubs his eyes, wondering if it was too late to make another cup. It’s not like he’s been sleeping this past week anyway, one more night would hardly make much of a difference. He feels the telltale signs of a headache creeping in as they often do when he tires himself out like this. But even if he leaves the outline for later, he still has reading to do for three more classes. Alex pinches the bridge of his nose, and briefly considers saying _ fuck it _ and going to bed, before he reorganizes his notes for the paper and makes space on his desk for the reading. The outline can wait.

A quick shower later he settles at the desk again, with a cup of decaf (and a pat on his back for making that choice) and a granola bar. Two hundred pages. He could do this. Alex brings out his highlighters and puts on some music, wondering when his Friday evenings had started looking like this. _ Law school, they said. It’s rewarding, they said. _

The front door creaks open when he’s halfway through his reading and almost finished with his coffee. Alex makes a mental note to oil the hinges at some point during this weekend, before he closes the textbook and turns around, smiling. Henry shrugs off his suit jacket and tie, looking his usual annoyingly handsome self while Alex stifles a yawn in spite of the amount of caffeine in his system.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” Henry says, looking all kinds of fond. Alex feels a little ridiculous in his tousled hair, glasses and the ratty NYU sweatshirt, but finds an answering warmth spreading through him anyway as he lets himself be kissed hello.

“Hi, sweetheart,” he says, leaning back into the chair while Henry leans against the desk. Alex runs his fingers over Henry’s knuckles absentmindedly from where his palm clasps the desk, the day catching up to him while Henry finishes responding to a final text before slipping his phone into his pocket.

“Hi. You almost done?”

“Nope,” Alex says, popping the _ p_. “About halfway through. How was the meeting?”

“Alright, more of the same. You know how it is.” And then as he notices the two empty cups and three wrappers from the granola bars, “Have you eaten?”

“Uh, do granola bars count?”

“Alex, it’s almost eleven,” Henry chides, but softens it by trailing fingers through his hair and suddenly Alex is more tired and more hungry than he’s been all day.

“I was in a zone,” he says sheepishly.

“_ In a zone_, he says. Are you up for eggs? I could eat some too and then I’m honestly okay with just watching TV and going to bed. Today was exhausting.”

Alex nods, leaning into the warmth from where Henry’s palm cradles his face. “So glad the romance is still alive,” he teases before pressing his lips to Henry’s wrist in a fleeting kiss.

Henry rolls his eyes. “Oh, I’ll show you romance when you’re not falling on your feet, love.”

Alex lets himself be pulled up and they amble around the kitchen in practiced movements, with an intimacy that comes with sharing space with someone. He loves it a stupid amount. It’s quiet, save for Henry asking him for something and he works on the avocados and toasts the bread while Henry makes the eggs. They settle on opposite sides of the kitchen island, and Alex accepts the glass of juice poured for him.

They eat in relative silence, tired and hungry, knocking knees under the table. Alex is filled with gratitude for this life where he can elicit a laugh from his boyfriend by dragging his toe down Henry’s foot.

Alex does the dishes while Henry takes a shower and turns off the lamp at his desk before getting under the covers, drowsy and warm with stomach pleasantly full. He thinks he must’ve dozed off a little because the next thing he knows, Henry gets into bed, shower-warm and smelling clean. Alex buries his face into Henry’s neck, nosing along his jaw. Henry pulls back a little, to look at him.

“I was thinking—what if we went to Austin for the long weekend?”

Alex looks at him. “Like, tomorrow?”

“Yes, like tomorrow. You have Monday off, don’t you?”

“Yeah, but like, I have a fuck ton of reading to do and two assignments,” he whines.

Henry looks at him, eyes liquid and a small, private smile on his lips. Alex wants to kiss that smile off his face, it’s so beautiful.

“Okay, but. What if you took your homework there? You can recharge and then just finish it on one evening or something. You haven’t taken a break in ages, love.”

That _ does _ sound appealing. The thing is, maybe Alex overworks himself a little. Or you know, a lot. He just doesn’t want anyone to think law school was handed to him, wants them to know he puts in just as much work. He’s found people make their own conclusions anyway, but far be it for him to give them an inch.

Henry gathers him close and it’s really not fair, Henry _ knows _ what he’s doing. Alex is tired and pliant and yeah, a break sounds fucking great, actually.

He attempts one last-ditch, half-hearted protest. “We need to stock up the fridge there.”

“Already talked to Oscar, everything is ready,” Henry says sounding smug.

“You _ planned _ this.”

Sure fingers tipping his chin up and—_ oh_. Alex finds himself at the receiving end of a toe-curling kiss and really, if he was more awake, this might actually go somewhere, but he isn’t so he lets himself be kissed into breathlessness.

“Maybe I did,” Henry says, pulling back.

“Okay, baby. Let’s do it. I really need to finish my homework though,” he warns.

“I promise. I’ll take my manuscript too, work while you work.”

A year ago, Henry had finally started working on his queer anthology series, gathering source material and compiling it. Some of Alex’s favorite nights in their apartment have been the two of them at the dining table, notes spread out, a pot of coffee in the middle while they work. Alex loves it, loves having Henry in his space, having someone match him word for word, someone who he can bounce ideas off of.

He smiles at Henry in the dark, grazing his knuckles along the sharp line of Henry’s cheekbones, all at once innocuous and intimate. “That sounds great, and yeah I uh, I could really use a break.”

“Okay. We can leave whenever you’re up tomorrow. Get some sleep, love.”

“I just really love you,” he murmurs sleepily.

He feels an answering smile on Henry’s lips from where they’re pressed to his temple before he falls asleep.

***

_ Lorena Hickok to Eleanor Roosevelt - 1933 _

_ I’ve been trying to bring back your face — to remember just how you look. Funny how even the dearest face will fade away in time. Most clearly I remember your eyes, with a kind of teasing smile in them, and the feeling of that soft spot just north-east of the corner of your mouth against my lips. _

***

Approximately ten hours of sleep will, apparently do wonders for you, as Alex finds out the next morning. He wakes up well-rested for once and turns to his side to find Henry buried in a book. It comes and goes in waves, this feeling. He looks at the Henry shaped space in his life, his family, his (their) home and he can’t remember that there was ever a time that this wasn’t the case. _ You don’t make it fucking easy. But I’m in love with you_, he’d said. But the truth is, loving Henry is the easiest damn thing in his life and once he had that; well the rest just—it slotted right into place, didn’t it.

Alex watches Henry put the book down and turn towards him and lean into a kiss, smiling.

“Morning. There’s coffee if you want.”

He shakes his head and makes a quick trip to the bathroom before promptly straddling Henry’s lap. Henry leans back with an _ oof _ but his palms come to rest on Alex’s hips, his thumb grazing over the divot on his right side. “Oh, hello,” he says, grinning broadly, sandy hair sticking up while he looks sleep-mussed in a way that does funny things to Alex’s heart no matter how many times he’s seen it.

Alex kisses him, slow and unrelenting, rolling his hips insistently and feels the moment Henry’s body gives in, the way his grip on his hips tightens. 

He pulls back, flushed, heart hammering, and it occurs to him that they haven’t done much but lazily make out all week, and well, it was time to change _ that_. “We’re not in a hurry, yeah?”

Henry huffs out a laugh, at odds with the way his palms slide up Alex’s back. “No, no we’re not.”

“Good,” he says, mouthing at Henry’s neck.

Henry pulls him closer, breath stuttering. “Fucking _ great_.”

***

_ George Villiers to King James VI and I _

_ I naturally so love your person, and adore all your other parts, which are more than ever one man had. _

***

They leave a little before noon and Henry arranged for a _ jet _ and also for David to conveniently be with Bea while she was visiting June and Nora in DC and Alex thinks he must really have been tired as fuck considering none of this had garnered his attention in any way. 

Alex spends most of the flight making a dent in his reading before putting his textbooks aside to go through Henry’s far more interesting notes for his book. There’s a car waiting for them at the airport when they land and Alex gets into the driver’s seat, looking forward to the rest of their weekend.

It’s cloudy in Austin, the air is heavy and sticky with the anticipation of rain as it often is in May, but for once they don’t have plans that involve leaving the house for extended periods of time so he figures they’ll be okay. Last year, they’d come for longer and Alex had finally shown Henry around Austin, done all the touristy things. Now, he’s happy to just relax.

***

_ Vita Sackville-West to Virginia Woolf - 1926 _

_ It is incredible how essential to me you have become. I suppose you are accustomed to people saying these things. Damn you, spoilt creature; I shan’t make you love me any the more by giving myself away like this—But oh my dear, I can’t be clever and stand-offish with you: I love you too much for that. Too truly. You have no idea how stand-offish I can be with people I don’t love. I have brought it to a fine art. But you have broken down my defences. And I don’t really resent it … _

***

Henry unlocks the door and they step in with their duffle bags, while their security leaves them alone to discreetly occupy the house next door. Alex takes an appreciative look around, the place never fails to make him feel at home, wrapping him in a comforting bubble of barbecue and Shiners and his dad’s laugh, despite their absence.

He kicks off his sneakers and flops on the bed scrolling through his phone, sending their group a snap before quickly scrolling through his email and calendar to make sure he isn’t missing any deadlines (he isn’t).

When Henry comes back from the bathroom he chooses to unceremoniously dump himself on Alex, getting an elbow in on a ticklish spot and making Alex squawk indignantly. Alex finds it hard to hold back a smile though; not when Henry looks at him like that, stupidly soft, arms bracketing Alex’s head, his body a comforting weight on Alex. Outside, it begins to rain in earnest, the water hitting the roof and then sliding down the window panes in rivulets. Inside, Henry’s body loses whatever little tension it had when he buries his face in Alex’s neck with a surprisingly chaste open-mouthed kiss under his ear, making Alex squirm.

Alex trails his fingers over the dip in Henry’s spine. Everything feels hushed, muted, and it isn’t until they’ve left New York City does he realize how noisy it is. He likes it, it feels like the city keeps up with his a-million-miles-an-hour brain, but he likes this too, narrowing everything down to Henry in his arms, weary muscles pliable in a way they rarely are.

“Are you falling asleep on me?”

Henry’s reply is muffled against his clothed shoulder. “Maybe. We can make dinner after. Oh and maybe elotes?”

Alex smiles at the British accent curling around _ elotes_. “Sounds good.”

***

_ Vladimir Nabokov to Véra - 1923 _

_ Yes, I need you, my fairy-tale. Because you are the only person I can talk with about the shade of a cloud, about the song of a thought — and about how, when I went out to work today and looked a tall sunflower in the face, it smiled at me with all of its seeds. _

***

Dinner finds them in the kitchen, where Alex is generous with his portion of cotija (because why not) while sipping intermittently from the wine glass next to him. Henry was on chopping duty following which he’s taken to sitting on the counter and plying Alex (and himself) with wine. _ This is as far as my cooking abilities go, love. _ He sees how it is.

By the time they sit down to eat they’re more than a little tipsy, but the food is good and Henry talks animatedly about possibly getting to interview a living relative for his book and Alex is happy to lean his elbow on the table and listen, while watching his boyfriend turn redder by the minute as the cayenne hits. He feels warm and honeyed from the wine, his heart growing ten sizes bigger as he finishes the last of his meal.

Later, much later, finds them destroying a pint of ice cream and Alex is pretty sure he’s too full but he’s also spent the past few days feasting mostly on trail mix and granola bars and copious amounts of coffee, so he thinks he’s allowed to eat till he passes out from a food coma.

Henry smiles at him, “You have some—here I’ll get it,” he says, tracing his thumb at the spot of ice cream on Alex’s lower lip. Alex isn’t above playing dirty, he places an open-mouthed kiss, getting rid of the ice cream on Henry’s thumb, enjoying the way it makes Henry’s eyes darken.

“Fuck, Alex,” he says looking soft and rumpled and at home and yeah, Alex wants.

“That’s the plan.”

“That’s ter—_ mmph.”_

Alex smiles into the kiss before he lets himself be taken apart, Henry’s sure hands and smart mouth leaving them sweaty and loose-limbed.

***

_ Henry Miller to Anaїs Nin - 1932 _

_ While it thunders and lightnings I lie on the bed and go through wild dreams. We're in Seville and then in Fez and then in Capri and then in Havana. We're journeying constantly, but there is always a machine and books, and your body is always close to me and the look in your eyes never changes. People are saying we will be miserable, we will regret, but we are happy, we are laughing always, we are singing. _

***

In the morning, Alex wakes up to the sound of rain and the long line of Henry’s body pressed against his. He’s loathe to move, so he doesn’t. Henry stirs a little while later, nosing at the nape of Alex’s neck, slow with sleep. They drift out of bed eventually and make their way to the porch swing, hands wrapped around steaming mugs of coffee. The rain isn’t as insistent anymore, and everything around them is startlingly clear, bright, alive. It smells like clean air and greenery, a far cry from the insipid humidity of New York in the summer, the sort-of permanent smell of sweat and urine everywhere, and Alex takes in a greedy lungful.

Breakfast, or well, brunch considering it’s dangerously close to noon, is eggs and bacon, after which Alex moves to the desk to spread out his notes, while Henry settles on the couch, laptop in hand. They work in silence all afternoon until Alex declares he only has a little bit of reading left, which he can finish on the flight back.

The rain has stopped, leaving the air warm and muggy, so they shrug off their clothes and dive into the lake to cool off. Alex lazily admires the way the water clings to Henry’s skin, and how infuriatingly good looking he looks, swiping hair away from his face. He swims up to Henry, catches him in a searing kiss, wet skin against wet skin, before sucking an impressive bruise against Henry’s collarbone. Alex likes how it makes him flushed and starry-eyed with poorly disguised want, and he doesn’t know how he can miss something that he lives with, but between their terrible schedules and 2L draining the life out of him, he’s missed this.

***

_ Anaїs Nin to Henry Miller - 1932 _

_ This is strange, Henry. Before, as soon as I came home from all sorts of places I would sit down and write in my journal. Now I want to write you, talk with you. [...] _

_ I love when you say all that happens is good, it is good. I say all that happens is wonderful. For me it is all symphonic., and I am so aroused by living - god, Henry, in you alone I have found the same swelling of enthusiasm, the same quick rising of the blood, the fullness, the fullness... _

_ Before, I almost used to think there was something wrong. Everybody else seemed to have the brakes on. [...] I never feel the brakes. I overflow. And when I feel your excitement about life flaring, next to mine, then it makes me dizzy. _

***

They watch the sunset on the porch swing and Alex watches Henry take a big bite of his grilled cheese after dipping it into the tomato soup and feels a frisson of pride at having taught him that. What good was a Kensington upbringing if you didn’t dip your grilled cheese into the soup? It’s the superior way to eat it.

He digs into his own and thinks about the rest of their lives spread out in front of them. It looks a lot like this. He thinks about waking up to Henry every day for the rest of his life, moving around in the kitchen quietly, coming home and kissing him _hello_, and yeah, it sounds fucking spectacular, actually. Like everything he’s ever wanted. He thinks he wants to marry Henry and this isn’t the first time he’s thought this, but it’s the first time he’s given it a serious thought beyond the passing daydream of maybe getting married one day. It’s always sounded like a Big Thing, but the more he thinks about it the less it worries him. Their life together looks just like how he’s pictured it a thousand times, with or without getting married and then the idea isn’t as scary anymore. Just more of the same, and he gets to call Henry his _ husband _ which is all kinds of wonderful in ways that make Alex’s chest go tight.

They finish eating and Alex crowds into Henry’s space, straddles on his lap, sharing a laugh when the swing rocks a little.

Henry looks at him, brushing a curl away from his forehead. “I’m not sure this swing is made for whatever you’re trying to do,” he teases.

Alex feels the blood rush to his face, part nervousness, and part affection. “Shut up, that’s not what I’m doing.”

He holds Henry’s face in both palms his thumbs grazing Henry’s cheekbones. There’s a low buzz of insects around them but he tunes it out over the hammering of his heart.

Henry looks at him, the apples of his cheeks dusted pink. “What is it?”

“Marry me, sweetheart.”

Henry looks at him, eyes wide and suspiciously bright, “I-”

“Or you know, we can talk about it...I just—you fit.”

“I fit,” Henry repeats, dumbly.

Alex nods. “You fit. Right here, in my life, in my family,” he says. “In my heart,” he finishes, his voice hoarse. He smoothes the furrow in Henry’s brow and wipes away a stray tear before it can track his cheeks. “I don’t have a ring or anything yet, um. But I know I want to spend the rest of my life with you if you’ll let me. So you know, marry me?”

“If I _ let _ you,” Henry repeats again before blinking back tears. “Of course I’ll marry you, but you couldn’t wait for _ one _more day?”

If Alex thought he was ready for this feeling, he was wrong. It catches him off-guard, the tidal wave of happiness but then his brain catches up to the rest of it and “What?”

Henry squirms where he’s sitting, digging his hand into his pocket, removing first, his phone and then a little black box, which Alex had stupidly assumed _were his_ _AirPods_, and really, _what?_

“Tomorrow. I was going to ask you tomorrow,” Henry says, laughing wetly.

“Oh.” _ Oh_. That’s what this weekend was. It suddenly made a lot more sense.

Henry flicks the box open with his thumb and looks at him, grinning. Alex wants to remember every second of this for the rest of his life so he blinks and lets the tears clouding his vision, fall.

“Alex, First Son of Ruining Proposals-”

“_Wow._”

Henry huffs out a laugh, teasing. “Marry me?”

Alex sniffs and then nods and then he’s crying and Henry’s crying a little bit but he puts the ring on Alex’s left hand with shaky fingers anyway, and it’s all the warning he has before Alex kisses him squarely on the mouth and into their future.

***

_ Johnny Cash to June Carter-Cash - 1994 _

_ We get old and get used to each other. We think alike. We read each other’s minds. We know what the other wants without asking. Sometimes we irritate each other a little bit. Maybe sometimes take each other for granted. _

_ But once in awhile, like today, I meditate on it and realize how lucky I am to share my life with the greatest woman I ever met. You still fascinate and inspire me. You influence me for the better. You’re the object of my desire, the #1 earthly reason for my existence. I love you very much. _

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading, i'd love to know what you thought <3
> 
> [reblog](https://hasan-minhaj.tumblr.com/post/188641349228/how-we-rolled-up-the-carpet-so-we-could-dance) or [retweet](https://twitter.com/aseriesofnows/status/1188615055333560320) and come yell about rwrb with me!


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